


Black Flowers Blossom

by phollie



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Homeless, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Familial Abuse, First Love, Guilt, Homelessness, Illnesses, Implied Incest, M/M, Mental Instability, Obsessive Behaviour, Sexual Content, Sibling Love, Survival, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:12:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spending your whole life in alleyways could turn you into a monster if you let it. But being saved by a third-rate noble family doesn’t quite turn you into an angel, either. [AU timeline. Oz/Gilbert. Vincent —> Gilbert. Vincent/Ada. Rated M for everything.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we don't own our heavens

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so some background before we get into this! This is a completely AU timeline in which Jack never existed to redeem the Vessalius household. Gilbert and Vincent have spent their entire lives on the streets (hence their hideous speech patterns). Since the timeline here is different, they’re not Baskervilles, so they can die just as normal people do. Oz (a normal human, WHAT), Ada, and Oscar are around (I told you this was AU) but have turned their backs on the nobility scene in favor of living more secretive lives out of the public eye.  
> As for Gilbert and Vincent’s personalities…all the little moments we’ve seen of them as children in Sablier, Gilbert has been the more fiery one, and Vincent the more skittish one. And you can bet your bum I’m taking advantage of that here.  
> I have a feeling this story is going to rapidly spiral out of control. For all I know, Break could pop up out of the floorboards singing showtunes. Elliot and Leo could appear. Maybe even Rufus. I have no idea what’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s fun.  
> Forgive the shitty Cockney, I swear it won’t last the entire story.  
> Shutting up now. Lyrics are “Buy the Stars” by Marina and the Diamonds.

 

 

:::

**1.**

_oh we don’t own our heavens now_

_we only own our hell_

:::

            The back-alleys streets of Sablier are merciless, whether it be by day or night. Here in the corners and crannies of the city where the sun shines gray at its brightest and the gutters overflow with stinking muck, only the forsaken and the ruined reside. Not a soul with the wish to remain pure dares to take a step into these alleys - that is, if fate doesn’t decide to pluck such a soul up from its roots and toss them like garbage into this place, never to escape, never to rise up against their cruel destiny and become anything more than waste.

            Gilbert, a wild-eyed youth of twenty-two, has long learned that it’s easier to forgo such a hope from the very start. However, being something fiery and stubborn, even in the darkest of times he couldn’t quite do such a thing; even now, a young man that hasn’t known the warmth of a home or good food or even so much as a decent blanket since he was a tiny lad of but a few years old, there’s still some hope, some shred of longing that remains within his bedraggled body that  _‘this too shall pass.’ Tha’s wot they say. This won’t be forever. To ‘ell wiv these streets, these damned people. To ‘ell wiv fate and destiny. We’re leavin’ this place soon enough, Vince, believe me. Vince? Oi, open yer eyes, listen to me. Don’t sleep yet. Vince?_

“Jus’ closin’ me eyes for a wink,” Vincent murmurs, hoarse and weak. The slighter brother of the two, and the sicklier, his body is so fragile that even a stiff wind could bruise him.

“Close them eyes but five winks and yer sleepin’ like the dead do,” Gilbert pleads with a quick, unhinged look around them, wary of straggling folk that might knife them for the clothes off their backs. The straight, vertical scar marring the corner of his bottom lip proves that the fear isn’t entirely irrational, nor his brother’s missing tooth, only visible when he smiles. Vincent, however, doesn’t smile often enough for that.

            “Chest hurts,” Vincent says on a soft wheeze of breath before sputtering in a vicious cough.

            “Don’t sleep yet, Vince.” Gilbert leans forward and wipes his brother’s chin with one ratty sleeve. Another wild glance around them. No stragglers yet, but they’ll come soon enough. They always do. “One more move, Vince, jus’ one more move and we’s out o’ this alley.”

            “Too tired…”

            Gilbert regards his brother’s pale, sunken face, which remains pretty even in the midst of sickness and hunger. The dozens of long, golden braids that tumble down Vincent’s shoulders are grubby with dirt and are beginning to come loose, lank and greasy as they slowly unwind. Gilbert frowns and reaches forward to touch them before stroking a smudge of dirt off of his brother’s gaunt cheekbone. Vincent looks as though he tries very hard to open his eyes, but only his eyelashes flutter the barest bit before he deems it a task too exhausting to complete. Gilbert curses beneath his breath and makes careful work out of gathering his brother into a semi-standing position. “Wotcher doin’…?” Vincent’s voice is brittle and thin, his body limp.

            “Carryin’ you on me back, o’ course,” Gilbert answers as he carefully hoists Vincent up. “Now put yer arms ‘round me neck. Tha’s it. Now you keep a good hold, go’ it? Righ’ sure yer bones’ll break in a hundred pieces if you hits the ground.”

            Vincent gives a quiet hum next to Gilbert’s ear that tells him he understands and holds on as best as he can, which admittedly isn’t very well. Gilbert links his arms under the other’s knees to keep them around his hips and takes the first few painstaking steps out of the alley. The murky sunlight is only a fraction brighter in the streets, but the faint mist of rain is more evident without the protection of the tall buildings of the alley shielding them from it. Gilbert wishes he had something to cover Vincent’s head to fend it off and keep him from getting sicker, but all he finds is soggy trash littering the streets. The stares they’re attracting range from feverish to vacant to hateful, but Gilbert ignores them steadfastly, focusing on the path ahead and keeping Vincent on his back. He walks in grave silence, but something in his stomach flips with panic when Vincent’s grip starts to slacken. “Oi, Vince,” he murmurs, trying to keep the edge of panic from sounding too obvious in his voice. His brother’s nerves are so easily jostled. “Say somefin’.”

            “Mm?”

            The sound is barely there at all, but Gilbert hears it. He gives a small smile to himself, as relieved as the situation allows for him to be. “Okay. Jus’ makin’ sure yer still awake.”

            “Mm.”

            “Don’t you fink ‘bout fallin’ offa me.”

            “Mm…”

            Vincent’s arms tighten the tiniest bit around Gilbert’s neck. His little brother is trying, he knows that, although the blink of a smile fades from his lips as he feels his own exhaustion starting to set in, making his body heavy and his steps toilsome. But he doesn’t stop walking, not even for a moment’s rest. They have a long way to go.

:::

            In the backyard of a small, remote townhouse in the quieter part of Sablier, twenty-three-year-old Oz Vessalius is lying on his back in the dewy grass of the garden. The rain isn’t coming down as hard as he’d like, but the mist will have to do for now. He wears no coat, only a button-up shirt, vest, and pinstriped trousers that are a bit too big in the waist but too short in the legs. His feet are pale and bare as he wiggles his toes, his fingers long and elegant as they idly pull up tiny clumps of grass on either side of him. His eyes are fixed up at the sky, and his blond bangs stick to his forehead and cheeks from the faint fall of rain. His attention lies within nothing and everything all at once. All of the universe moves around and within him.

            A beautiful young man - but a strange one.

            From just beyond the garden wall connecting their townhouse to the neighbors’, he can hear the voices of children, can feel eyes on him from over the stone barrier. Oz glances sideways at them and sees their auburn heads - twins - peeking over at him, looking dubious and put off. “What do you suppose he’s doing?” the girl of the two whispers loudly.

            “Don’t know,” the boy says. A pause. “Do you think he’s summoning evil spirits?”

            “What? You mean you can do that by lying in the rain in your trousers?”

            “Reckon anything’s possible.”

            The girl gasps. “Why haven’t  _we_  tried that yet?”

            Oz leans up on one elbow and surveys the children with wide, blinking eyes. There’s a breezy laugh in his words when he says, “I can hear you, you know. Quite clearly.”

            The twins look at each other in shock.  _It lives!_  their eyes say.

            “I do this every time it rains,” Oz says simply, tilting his head to the side. “Aren’t you used to it by now?”

            The twins share another glance, this one a bit panicked, before looking back at Oz. The boy says in a stage whisper, “You’d better not tell our mama or papa what we were just saying!”

            Oz blinks at them before a mischievous smile curls at his lips, the lucid green of his eyes flashing. “Oh? I  _do_  wonder how they would react if they knew their precious children had an interest in dark and evil spirits…especially summoning them on their own! How scandalous!”

            The twins splutter in panic for a few comedic moments before nearly falling off whatever they’re standing on, but grab onto the wall for support just long enough to shoot Oz some very nasty words that children certainly shouldn’t be saying - until they lose their grip and disappear behind the wall, likely landing in a rosebush or shrub judging by the  _floof_ sound that breaks their fall.

            Oz is laughing quietly to himself when he hears his sister Ada’s voice come from the backdoor: “Oz, were you picking on the neighbor children again?”

            Oz turns to look at her, and finds her still dressed in her early tea gown the color of a clementine. A thick sable cloak is draped over her shoulders, and her hair (just as blond as her older brother’s) is pulled back in a loose French braid. Her sixteen years have shaped her into a lovely young woman, although just as strange as her older brother, no doubt. Oz returns her smile with an innocent one. “Hm? What gave you that idea?”

            “Hearing you,” Ada replies with a chirp of a laugh as she closes the backdoor behind her and makes her way into the garden. She, too, is barefoot, and she holds up her billowing skirts to keep them from getting wet in the grass. Eventually, though, she lets go of them with a pleasant sigh and takes a seat on the ground beside Oz, then flops down on her back to gaze up at the ashen sky with the same bright green eyes as her brother, the same distant, not-quite-there smile that has always enchanted yet unnerved the people around them. “Do you think something is going to happen soon?” she asks softly, reading her brother’s mind.

            “It always does when it rains,” Oz replies. “Even Uncle Oscar is noticing it.”

            “Really?”

            “Mhm. But he won’t admit to it. He likes to pretend that it’s just our imaginations, but he neglects to mentions that he has one, too.”          

            Ada gives a bell-like laugh, her prim hands wandering down to play with the wet blades of grass. “I don’t think it’s just our imaginations, though. We’ve never been wrong before.”

            “Like I said, every time it rains…” Oz smiles with one corner of his mouth and closes his eyes. The rain kisses his eyelids with cool lips. “Something happens…”

            Ada gives a dreamy sigh. “I hope it’s a good something.”

  
            “I think it will be.” A light laugh breathes past Oz’s lips. “Or maybe not. We’ll see.”

            “Maybe it’ll be a bit of both,” Ada muses.

            “That’s always my favorite.”     

            “Mine, too.”

            The siblings fall silent, both daydreaming and far away. The rain is beginning to pick up, but they don’t move from their spots in the grass, letting themselves drift far away on waves of thought until they might as well be washed away into another universe entirely.

:::

            Gilbert carries his brother as far as the outskirts of town before his legs give out. Luckily, Vincent remains on his back enough to keep from falling off, and despite how sore he is and how difficult it is to move, Gilbert manages to carefully lie Vincent down against the brick wall before finally resting his weary body beside him. “Christ,” he pants out, rubbing his aching thighs with the palms of his hands. He winces at the knotted muscles that sting beneath the pressure of his hands. “Fuckin’ legs ‘bout to fall righ’ off.”

            Vincent rests his head on Gilbert’s shoulder with a throaty, wet cough. He whispers out a sad apology into the tattered rag of Gilbert’s shirt. He’s shivering so hard his bones could very well rattle and leap out of his skin. Gilbert regards him with a worried frown before wrapping his long arms around Vincent’s shoulders, letting his brother collapse against him and bury his face into his chest. He can’t tell if Vincent is crying or if it’s his cold, but he figures if he asked, it might only make it worse if he is in fact crying. He holds Vincent tighter in response, careful not to hurt him. “Oi,” he murmurs, “fink about good things, Vince. Like when I gave you yer name. Remember?”

            Vincent gives a hard sniff and a small nod. Yes, he’s definitely crying. “When we was li’l kids,” he says, muffled into Gilbert’s chest.

            “Tha’s right. You was bu’ a wee two years. Reckon you wasn’t much smaller than you is now.”

            That pulls the tiniest of laughs out of Vincent, and Gilbert smiles at the sound of it, relieved even as his stomach gives a painful growl and Vincent lets out another cough. To distract them both, he keeps talking, low and soft to keep Vincent calm. “Vincent was the name o’ me favorite character, but the name o’ the story isself I can’t recall for the life o’ me. I jus’ liked that Vincent character…’ad a golden steed and a full suit o’ armor stronger than anyfin’, even stronger than the fires o’ hell isself…”

            Vincent is still shaking, but his sniffling subsides a little, and the edge of hyperventilation that was beginning to touch his breath is easing up.

            “All o’ God’s men, and all the king’s men, they knigh’ed the Vincent fellow as an angel by the end o’ the story. I remember that, too. I fink I even cried a bit.”

            Vincent laughs again, this time the sound of it more honest, more alive. “You cried, bruvver?”

            “Jus’ a bit,” Gilbert lies. (He’d cried waterfalls; he’d been so happy for that golden knight that nothing else in the world had mattered, nothing could have hurt him.) “I liked stories. They gave me somefin’ else to think on. Like an escape.”  _An escape from our whore mum and our drunk papa that pushed me head into the wall when I asked him to stop callin’ you “it”,_ he thinks, the words black and scorching with wrath within him. The only outward hint of such a thought crossing his mind is the faint flash of something violent and hateful that flits across his golden eyes and the slight twitch to his upper lip. Thankfully, Vincent sees none of it.

            “Vince,” Gilbert asks, staring off into space, “d’you like what I named you?”

            Vincent lifts his head to look up at Gilbert. “Iss the name you gave me, Gil.”

            Gilbert stares blankly at the brick wall ahead. They went from one alley to another. And after this one, another will be waiting for them. Funny how they all look the same no matter how far you carry your dying brother on your back.

            “So I love my name,” Vincent says, “and I love you.”

            The rain is beginning to come down harder, but Gilbert scarcely feels it. As he closes his eyes, he envisions a massive wave carrying him away from all of this, washing all the grime and muck of the streets from his body, and with it, cleansing him of every hideous thing he’s ever done just to stay alive. The wave clears. He opens his eyes. The same brick wall sits ahead of him. The same alley.


	2. the city pumps its aching heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are "Mae" by The Gaslight Anthem.

**  
2.**

::

_the city pumps its aching heart_

_for one more drop of blood_

::

             It isn’t just a cold that Vincent has. It’s pneumonia.

            He takes a turn for the worse sometime in the late afternoon , and the wet hack of his cough is so harsh that it jolts Gilbert out of his impromptu nap. He jumps to a start, hitting his head against the brick wall at the sudden jerk of his body, and finds Vincent shaking on the wet stone of the alley, his arms wrapped around his heaving chest and wincing with each hollow breath he takes. Gilbert scrambles over to him and rests his ear on his brother’s feeble chest. That horrible rattling within could have been heard without even needing to come near. Vincent’s face is pale and gleaming with sweat, and when Gilbert touches his forehead, he can feel the fever rising off of him in pulsing little waves, one wave for each shallow heartbeat. The heat of it is still on Gilbert’s hand when he pulls away with a curse beneath his breath, wracking his mind for what to do next. If Vincent couldn’t walk before, he certainly can’t now, but exhaustion and painful hunger still clings to Gilbert so headily that he doubts he has it in him to carry him on his back again. Even standing is a trial, what with how his muscles strain and his stomach lurches, desperate for nourishment.

            The rain has stopped for the most part, but a ghostly fog is beginning to gather atop the darkness of the city, making it difficult to see. This part of Sablier is unfamiliar. There are fewer alleys and more houses, less stragglers and more well-off citizens that had cringed at the sight of two gaunt brothers in rags. For all that Gilbert has seen here, they are the only two that fend off the streets. Earlier on in the day, an older man had been about to lean down to aid them, but his wife, a thin-lipped woman with cold eyes, had tugged him along, warning him of the many illnesses that plague “their type” in a voice that reminded Gilbert of a vulture. Something inside of him had snapped, and he vaguely remembers his voice cracking when he told Vincent not to listen to her, that syphilis only catches you when you give your body to others, and that they’d never sink that low, not as long as they’d ever live. Vincent had looked at him with hollow eyes before nodding and burying his head into Gilbert’s chest again.

            That had been the only time all day they were offered any help. Gilbert at least had the good grace not to be surprised.

            But the recollection is rapidly cut off short when Gilbert sees the figures of what appear to be three grown men emerging from the fog in the distance. They’re dressed in pinstriped, grubby clothing that would be better suited in a circus ring than in the streets - and it’s in that moment that Gilbert knows he and Vincent are in danger. “Vince,” he whispers, his voice ragged and low with half-contained panic. “Please. Don’t. Cough.”

            Vincent is shaking like a leaf when Gilbert gathers him into his arms and cradles him against his chest, placing his dirty hand over his brother’s mouth to keep him as silent as possible. Vincent’s chest rattles as he heaves into Gilbert’s hand, phlegm and spittle wetting his palm. Gilbert bites back a gag and focuses on the three circus men in the distance, who are chattering back and forth in quiet, conspiratorial tones. Satchels are slung over their shoulders, no doubt filled with belongings they’ve stolen from people of all parts of the city. It’s only when the leader, a bald, burly man with a hooked nose, steps out of the fog that a violent rage stirs Gilbert’s blood and makes him shake with a seething hiss between his teeth, his hands clenching into tight fists atop the wet stone of the alleyway.

            “Gil…?” Even Vincent in his sorry state is concerned by this sudden switch. “Wossit…?”

            “Iss the fucker who took yer tooth.”

            Vincent makes to sit upright, but the energy required for the movement is something he just doesn’t have. He falls back into Gilbert’s lap and wraps his weak arms around the other’s waist as if to belt him in place, to keep Gilbert from slinking out of the alley like an animal of prey and tearing the men’s throats out with his teeth. But Gilbert knows he would do much, much more than that.

            “Stay wiv me, Gil,” Vincent pleads on a whisper. “Jus’ stay ‘ere wiv me an’ they won’t - “

            “I wanna kill that man,” Gilbert says on a low hiss, trembling with a sudden adrenaline that makes him feel as though he could sprint around the entire earth and take out anything that gets in his way, anything that dares to harm Vincent. “I wanna kill ‘im for layin’ a hand on you.”

            “No, Gil!” Vincent whispers, panicking. “Please, Gil, don’t - “

            But just as Vincent is about to say another word, he lets out a sudden cough so vicious that it rings out of the alley and into the square where the three men are conversing. Gilbert watches in horror as the men look directly over to the alley, where only the shadows protect the two brothers from sight. The hook-nosed man says something, and the other two give horrible laughs that make Gilbert really feel like gagging. When the leader nods for his men to follow him to the source of the noise, Gilbert gathers Vincent into his arms and bolts to his feet, keeping his steps as light as possible as he flits down to the other end of the alley that leads out onto the opposite street. Vincent clings onto him with hands that shake so hard they might as well tumble off his wrists and fall to the filthy ground for the rats to feed on.  

            “You hear that, mates?” It’s the leader’s voice, thick and gravelly as it cuts through the fog like a rusty ax. “Someone’s a’scurryin’!”

            Vincent gives a small whimpering sound into Gilbert’s chest, but Gilbert only runs faster, adrenaline overcoming the hunger and exhaustion that would have previously held him back. They’re almost at the end of the alley now, the clearing visible through the dark, clouded mist of fog. Gilbert’s thoughts echo in his head, whispery and lethal and focused.  _I’ll kill anyone that hurts Vince. Anyone that hurts me bruvver, I’ll kill ‘em, I’ll slit them’s throats one by one till nothin’ll ever dare touch him again. Ju’s watch me._

“What’ve you got there, lad?” the leader calls out mockingly. “Some whore you picked up to get your jollies?”

            “Block it out, Vince,” Gilbert whispers, his bare feet slapping against wet stone as he runs with his bony brother in his arms. Puddles splash up around him, soaking his rags with dirty water. “Cover yer ears.”

            He reaches the clearing of the alley and emerges on the other side of the street, heart pounding, muscles on fire. He glances wildly all around him to find somewhere to hide, but he only makes it a few more paces before a strong hand clamps down on his shoulder and yanks him backwards, knocking him off his feet and crashing to the hard ground. Vincent falls in a shivering heap a foot away, and Gilbert scrambles over to him to cover him with his body as the three men loom down on them with their ugly, mottled faces. The leader of the crew is tossing a blade back and forth between his massive hands, leering at Gilbert with a triumphant, tiger-like smile. “Aye, look at this twist in events! We know these boys, don’t we, mates?”

            The two other men give nasty smiles and nod in agreement, muttering things Gilbert can’t and doesn’t want to hear. He can only pray that Vincent doesn’t hear them, either, but his eyes remain fixed and hateful on their leader, the ugly scum with the bald head and sharp teeth. Gilbert envisions himself punching the man clean through the chest and claiming his beating heart as victory before throwing the hideous thing into a gutter. But even that wouldn’t be enough.

            “You know,” the leader says, staring at Gilbert with hunger in his eyes, “if you weren’t so filthy, you’d be a pretty thing. Ladies back at the whorehouse would eat you right up.”

            “Fuck you,” Gilbert spits out, seething.

            “Like a lovely little raven, you are,” the man muses, scratching his chin with the back of one fat finger. His voice takes a turn for the infantile when he adds, “And your brother there a scared wittle mousey-mouse.”

            Gilbert jerks out a leg and kicks the man directly in the kneecap, making him shout and buckle to the ground. The other two men burst into action, but Gilbert grabs the leader’s blade that had skittered to the ground just in time and holds it at arm’s length, breathing heavily and his whole body shaking as he jumps to his feet. The two men luckily don’t have blades of their own, but Gilbert doesn’t lower his arm for a second, ready and willing to cut them to ribbons if they take a step closer. But the men steal a single glance back at their fallen, cursing leader, then back at Gilbert before making a run for it, taking their satchels with them and nicking their leader’s bag right off the ground. The man left behind can only curse and shout after them, his leg making him unable to get up from the ground.

            Perfect opportunity.

            The blade handle feels cool and sleek in Gilbert’s hand as he crouches down before the man, the movement of his body eerily calm and graceful, as if wrath has transformed him into a creature with black-feathered wings. The man looks up at him in horror, suddenly not so intimidating anymore now that he’s in mortal danger. “C-Come now, lad, we don’t need to be doing all this, do we? What’ll you gain from hurting me, eh?”

            “More than you’ll ever know,” Gilbert whispers, setting the blade to the man’s throat.

            “Gil, don’t…!” Vincent calls out weakly from a few feet away.

            Gilbert’s golden eyes flash brilliantly in the darkness, fixed pointedly on the man below. The black curls of his hair hang down his face like dark rain. “You and yer men tried to kill me bruvver afore. ‘ave you forgotten,  _‘lad’_?”

            He recalls those voices so clearly now, remembers the occurrence as if it were playing out right before his eyes again. Gilbert pinned to the wall by the two men, thrashing and screaming and kicking with all his might. Vincent being held down by the leader, a blade hovering just below his right eye, the wine-red one that glistened with tears. To that man, the eye was a prized jewel he’d only have to cut out in order to cash in.  _“Aye, mates, this lad here’s got a red eye! Shines like a ruby! And here I was thinking they were just a myth! We’ll be as rich as kings for such a treasure!”_  Then, Vincent screaming as the blade came closer to his eye; then, Gilbert being overcome with a power he didn’t know he had in him and whipping away from the men holding him to the wall, leaping towards the man hovering above his brother; then, the sound of people rushing to the alley to see the skirmish at the sound of Vincent’s scream; then, the men’s plan being rapidly cut short when a stranger twice the leader’s size peeled him off of Vincent, only for the leader to deliver a solid kick to Vincent’s mouth in rage, knocking out a tooth and busting his lip.

            Then, Vincent crying for three hours straight and being too scared to sleep even in Gilbert’s embrace.

            And now, this.

            “Don’t kill ‘im, Gil!” Vincent screams, sobbing in between wretched coughs. “Gil!”

            Gilbert hears Vincent’s voice through a cloud of delirium, but he sees nothing but this man’s face, remembers nothing but the greed in his eyes as he’d been about to gouge out his brother’s. The blade remains motionless against the man’s throat, Gilbert’s eyes wide and feral, his body tense and about to strike.

            But there comes a voice from somewhere unknown, a deep, booming voice belonging to an older man. “Having a knife fight, are we? Mind if a swordsman joins in for a bit?”

            Gilbert jerks his head up, looking in the direction of the voice’s origin. In the distance, he can see a broad figure lit up by candlelight in the window of one of the townhouses lining the street, but he can’t see the figure’s face. The distraction makes his grip of the knife falter as his attention wanes, and in the next moment, the man beneath him punches him clean in the jaw, sending him flying back onto the ground as pain shoots all throughout his head. He hears the man running off as fast as he can, and the only saving grace of the situation is that he neglected to take back his knife. Vincent drags himself towards him, touching Gilbert’s face with cold hands and sobbing like a scared child. Gilbert’s ears are ringing from the impact of the punch; he can already feel his jaw swelling, and when he spits, he spits blood. The silver of the man’s knife glints mockingly up at him from the ground.  _Well done,_ it hisses. _You let him get away._

Gilbert lets out a shuddering sigh, closing his eyes and slipping the knife into the tattered belt around his waist for safekeeping. “Vince,” he says, “are you alright?”

            Vincent is crying too hard to properly answer, but he nods, still touching Gilbert’s face as if making sure it’s all still there.

            When Gilbert looks back over to the window where the voice had come from, the man is gone.

:: 

            “Do you even  _have_  a sword, Uncle?”

            Oscar Vessalius is halfway down the hall when he hears the questioning chirp of his niece’s voice. Ada stands in the doorway of her bedroom in her nightgown, brushing her long hair with an ivory hairbrush bought for her sixteenth birthday, and looks at Oscar with both parts hope and skepticism. Oscar laughs and is just about to answer her when Oz’s languorous voice drifts out from the study. “If Uncle Oscar had a sword, he would have taught me sword-fighting years ago.”

            Oscar peers around the study door and finds his nephew sitting cross-legged on the floor, an open book propped up against a chair leg before him. His golden hair has fallen loose out of its green ribbon, wayward strands falling to his shoulders. He grins at Oscar in the middle of turning a page and tucks a strand behind his ear. “Right, Uncle?”

            “In that case, he would have taught me, too,” Ada objects in a very as-a-matter-of-fact fashion.  

            Oz snorts. “You’d swing it the wrong way and chop yourself in half.”

            “And you would only wear it for show, like a big old dandy.”

            “Alright, alright,” Oscar says with a chuckle. “No need to argue. There’s no sword to even argue about.”

            “That’s what I was trying to say,” Oz explains with a tiny huff.

            “So there’s no sword, then?” Ada’s mouth is slung in a sad pout.

            “No need to be so disappointed. You two should commend me on my masterful bluffing skills! That was a flawless performance your uncle just gave!”

            When both the siblings are silent and unimpressed, Oscar gives a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, continuing down the hall with the candlestick in his hand. “If you two had seen what I just saw, I wonder what tricks you would pulled out of your sleeves to break it up.”

            “What  _did_  happen?” Oz asks, now exiting the study and following Oscar down the hall into the kitchen.

            “I bet it was a street fight!” Ada says excitedly, following her brother.

            “You ninny, there aren’t any street fights in this part of town.”

            “Actually, Oz, your sister is right.” Oscar places the candlestick on the kitchen counter and goes about making himself a cup of tea. “There was a boy - or a young man, rather, ‘boy’ seems too young - with a knife in his hand. He looked like some sort of animal, what with that crazy mop of hair he had. Awfully skinny, too, dressed in rags and all. And there was another man on the ground beneath him, and I think he would have been cut up right then and there if it hadn’t been for  _your brave and influential uncle_ to distract them.”

            Ada takes a seat at the kitchen table, still brushing her hair as she looks at Oscar with round, bright eyes that glint with wonder at his every word. Oz forgoes a seat and chooses instead to sit atop the table, his willowy legs swinging back and forth. “So was anyone hurt?” he asks, rapt with interest.

            Oscar pauses in the middle of stirring milk into his tea. Had he been imagining the crumpled-up figure that had been a few feet away from the knife-holder’s feet? Had it been a trick of the shadows? No, he doesn’t think so. There had been another person, and he swears he heard a frightened, pleading voice coming from it. And a name, too. Gil? Like the gills of a fish? Or perhaps Phil…no, it had certainly been Gil. And Oscar remembers the sight of that figure crawling towards the knife-holder after the other man had thrown a punch and ran, but as for brutal injuries, Oscar can safely assume there had been none. At least he hopes so.

            “No,” he says finally. “No one was hurt.”

            Oz and Ada share a sigh. “That’s not even a real fight, Uncle,” Oz says, bored with this new information. “I bet it hadn’t even been a knife, but a stick.”

            “A stick of butter,” Ada says sadly, resting her head atop her folded arms.

            Oscar casts a glance at the two that isn’t half as surprised as he makes it out to be. “I’m a little alarmed at how disappointed you sound!”  
            Oz hops off the table and picks up the fluffy cat that strolls into the kitchen, scratching it lightly behind its ears. “Can you really blame us, though? Nothing ever happens around here as it is. It’s dreadfully boring.”

            Oscar shakes his head again with a smile, taking a sip of his tea. “Well, a lack of violent street urchins and bloody nighttime battles is something to be  _thankful_  for, dear nephew. Despite what your knight-in-armor stories tell you.”

            Oz gasps as if scandalized. “Says the man who read me the story of the knight Vincent when I was only five years old!”

            “The knight Vincent!” Ada repeats with a dreamy sigh. “Oh, he’s my favorite…”

            Oscar only gives a laugh and a wave of his hand as he takes his tea and heads off down the hall to his bedroom, bidding the two youths a goodnight on his way out.

::

            Vincent is too weak to stand, let alone walk. His fever spikes higher, and Gilbert holds back his dirty braids as he throws up in the street, sweating and shivering and looking frighteningly pale. Once he’s emptied his already empty stomach, he collapses in Gilbert’s lap, his face waxy and sheened with sweat. They’re in the middle of the street, Gilbert with his bruising jaw and ringing ears, Vincent with his sickness that seems to be elevating every moment.

            Gilbert has to do something. Fast.

            His eyes are bleary as he looks around, his head spinning and teeth chattering from the cold. The first thing his gaze goes to is the window where the man with the booming voice had stood. Gilbert remembers that voice, and how there had almost been a laugh lacing his words. No man with a sword would be so boisterous about shouting out the fact into the night. The man had been bluffing - and he had been the reason the leader fellow had gotten away.

            For the third time that day, Gilbert collects Vincent’s limp body into his arms and gets to his feet. His legs wobble, but he remains standing, his focus fixed outward into the night with not a moment’s relent. “Vince,” he whispers, firm and concrete, “you jus’ go on to sleep now. Everything’ll be fine.”

            “Where are we going…?” Vincent’s voice is barely there at all, little more than a sickening rasp.

            “Sleep, Vince.” And that’s the last thing Gilbert says before making his way down the stretch of street ahead of him to the line of townhouses ahead. Not once does his gaze stray from that window.

:: 

            “You feel it, too, don’t you?” Oz asks Ada, standing before the large window of the study to look out onto the night. “It’s not just me?”

            Ada is thumbing through one of her massive books on constellations and planetary alignment, looking distracted and fidgety in the plush chair seated behind the mahogany desk. When she looks up at Oz, her eyes are vivid and intense, her expression serious. “It’s never just you,” she says. “It rained today. And when it rains, something always happens. We, big brother, are never wrong.”


	3. consign me not to darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are "Broken Crown" by Mumford and Sons.

  **3.**  


::

_consign me not to darkness_

:: 

            Vincent loves his brother.

            Vincent loves his brother so, so much.  

            Vincent loves his brother more than anyone or anything in this world.

            These are the thoughts that repeat endlessly in his fever-riddled brain as he lingers on the precipice of consciousness, bundled up like a dirty parcel in Gilbert’s arms which somehow remain strong enough to carry him at all.  _I love Gil. I love Gil. I love Gil so much. I can’t die ‘cos I love Gil so very much and dyin’ means I can’t see Gil anymores and I love Gil so much and I can’t die._ He can hear his own voice saying these words in his ears, but he himself is not speaking them aloud. His mind talks to him louder and louder as his temperature swells. He’s afraid to open his eyes, but he’s just as afraid to close them, and so he chooses to stare at Gilbert’s chest right where his heart is and doesn’t dare look anywhere else. His eyes are barely open, but he sees all he needs to see to keep the fear away. (Mostly.)

            It takes all the strength he has to look up at Gilbert’s face, and he sees his brother’s eyes staring straight ahead, gleaming and lucid as he walks. There’s a sort of madness in how focused his brother gets when he knows precisely what he needs to do, even if Vincent himself doesn’t know what that thing is. He supposes he doesn’t have to. He trusts his brother, even during the times in which Gilbert doesn’t trust himself.

            “Gil?” Vincent whispers, his throat raw.

            “Vince.”

            “If I…’adn’t told you not to…” He has to pause here to catch his breath. Speaking is exhausting, and it hurts every muscle in his body. “Would you ‘ave…killed that man…?”

            Gilbert’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t answer. That could mean two very different things, and for once, Vincent isn’t sure which one is more likely. But thinking on it makes him feel sick, and he is already so very sick, and so he lets himself drift off into the lull of fever-dreams that play out before his eyes without needing to close them. He sees himself being knighted as an angel by all of God’s men and all the king’s men. The knight Vincent, the angel Vincent. The crowd bursts into uproarious applause. A woman Vincent has never seen before, with long golden hair and bright green eyes, grants him his halo.

 

::

 

            “Maybe we should make more tea.”

            Oz looks at Ada as if she’s speaking gibberish, but Ada herself thinks it’s a perfectly decent suggestion, and she’ll tell you why. “If I were a crazy happenstance like what we’re waiting for, I know I would want tea upon my arrival. Preferably jasmine!”

            “We don’t even know exactly  _what_ the happenstance will be, though.” Oz is sitting atop the windowsill of the study, drumming his fingers anxiously against his kneecaps as he stares out the window expectantly. “And jasmine is downright horrid, blegh.”

            “So is cynicism,” Ada says curtly, nodding her head with one precise bob as she closes her astronomy book. She rises to her feet and paces back and forth for a few thoughtful moments before an idea comes to her. “Here I am in my nightclothes looking like a right fool! I’m going to go get dressed up!”

            She hears her brother laugh as he waves her off, and she scurries out of the study and down the hall into her bedroom to raid her closet. Dresses, dresses, so many dresses, all in the most vibrant of colors and patterns. “But what sort of dress speaks of a crazy happenstance?” she muses quietly to herself, tapping her chin with her fingertips. Her gaze falls on a brilliant gown the color of sunshine, the fine fabric dotted with delicately embroidered flowers. No, too summery. Crazy happenstances occur only when it rains, after all. Perhaps something more somber, then? Such as the gray tea gown with white lace trimming the collar and wrists, polka-dotted with black all about the sweeping layers of skirt. Oh, yes, this one is lovely. Perfect for the occasion (whatever the occasion will pan out to be, but that’s part of the fun, the guessing and the wondering).

            Ada pulls the dress out of her closet and drapes it across her canopied bed before quickly untying the laces of her nightgown and slipping out of the cool silk, a dramatic, full-bodied shiver wracking her when the cold air meets her bare skin. She holds up the gray gown and is just about to step into it when she hears a rustling sound from just outside her window. She pauses, puzzled, but quickly does away with the thought. Probably just a wandering spirit drifting through the trees, or perhaps a phantom or two mingling in the rosebushes. Nothing to be put off by.  

            But then she hears it again, and something in her gut tells her this isn’t anything that can be pinned upon ghosts. This is the sound of something living. Ada furrows her pale brow and hastily steps into the gown, ignoring the many laces and snaps in the back in favor of stepping over to the window and pushing the curtains aside. Her heart pumps a beat faster in expectation as she peers out the window, looking for any signs of movement in the shadows. At first, there is nothing outside of the occasional swaying tree branch or fluttering bird; but then, she sees what does indeed look like a phantom, a figure so pale that she can see the ghostly glow of its skin in the darkness. It’s carrying something in its arms, something just as pale and scarily thin as itself. Ada steps away from the window with a gasp, her eyes wide with both parts excitement and alarm, and quickly closes the curtains and scrambles out of her room, holding her dress closed in the back. “Oz!” she calls out in a loud whisper, mindful of her uncle sleeping down the hall. “Oz, there’s something out there! Just outside my window, I saw it!”

            But when she reaches the study, Oz isn’t there. Ada stops in the doorway, befuddled, and heads back out into the hall with a huff. Her fingertips make quick and clumsy work out of buttoning up the back of her dress as she searches the house for her brother, only to find him nowhere.

            It’s only when she hears the sound of the rain returning that she knows just where to look.

 

::

 

            Oz is lying in the grass again, and he’s waiting. The nighttime rain is much colder than it had been earlier, and falls upon his skin in cool little shocks, wetting his hair and making it cling to his cheeks. He lies with his eyes closed, his lips parted, his brow gently furrowed in concentration. If he remains patient, it will come. (God, but being patient is so very hard when he’s been bored for so long, and when the most recent happenstance that the rain had brought them was nothing more than the neighbor’s dog having puppies, puppies that Oz and Ada hadn’t been allowed to even so much as look at from over the garden wall. Such horrible neighbors…)

            But this, Oz knows, will be different. He can feel it in the air, under his skin, in his bones. Something is coming.

            There’s a rustle somewhere. Oz’s heartbeat picks up, but his eyes remain closed as he grabs a handful of grass on either side of him to keep his hands from shaking with anticipation. “Come on,” he whispers, “be something good, be something - “

            The sound of the backdoor opening breaks his concentration, and he looks over to see Ada standing in the doorway, panting and looking flushed. Oz gives a massive sigh and begrudgingly sits upright. “Why are you looking so out of breath? You should’ve known I’d be out here.”

            “I didn’t hear it raining at first,” Ada says quickly, her words winded. “Oz, I saw something!”   

            Oz’s interest is piqued within a second. “Was it a good something? An interesting something?”

            “I don’t know,” Ada says with a rapid shake of her head, her hair flying about her face. “It was just…it…well, it was pale!”  
            Oz’s expression immediately deadpans, and he flops back onto the grass to look up dismally at the black sky. “It was probably just a cat or something,” he sighs out, disappointed.

            “No, it was human-sized! It looked like a person!”

            Oz scratches his chin, nonplussed. “Maybe it was that supposed knife-wielder that Uncle Oscar was fabricating,” he says sarcastically.

            “Oh, you’re impossible.” Ada sighs and is about to go back inside - but then she stops, and Oz looks over to see her expression turn to one of breathless shock as she looks off into the distance. Oz stares at her for a silent moment before something dawns on him, and he slowly turns his head to look in the direction of where her gaze leads to - which is the pale, willowy shape of a young man standing in the clearing of the garden beneath the dogwood tree, a crumpled body tucked in his arms.

            Oz has seen only a handful of homeless people in all his life, but not once, not ever, has he seen a human being in a worse-off state than the sliver of a man that is currently staring him down, breathing heavily, shaking so hard it’s as if he could collapse at any moment. A tangled mess of dirty curls as black as the shadows bending around him obscure most of his face, but Oz can make out the bright slits of his eyes and the grimy skin of his face, so pale that it’s nearly sickening. Both of the figures are dressed in rags and scraps of here-and-there fabric cobbled together into a poor semblance of clothing, everything held up with fraying belts made of twine and thin strips of leather. The dark-haired man’s knees are scraped and bloody, and his collarbones jut out as sharp as straight-razors. All that Oz can see of the person in his arms is a mess of long braids that may or may not be blond beneath the darkness of dirt and filth.

            Oz suspects he and this man would have stared at each other for one hundred years were it not for Ada to break the web of shock that surrounds them all with a soft, worried, “H-Hello…?”

            The young man beneath the dogwood tree glances at Ada quickly, and the feverish way in which his eyes flit over to her makes Oz nervous for her. He gets to his feet, holding an arm back to motion for Ada to keep away. He remains silent for now, waiting for the dark-haired man to speak, but all the man does is open his mouth, say nothing, and quickly close it again, only to repeat this twice over, all the while glancing back and forth between Oz and Ada. There’s a panic in those eyes now, a desperation that Oz has never seen in another human being before, and it’s that desperation that spurns him to take the first step towards him. The man immediately takes a step backwards to counter him, the movement quick and jumpy as he holds the limp body in his arms tighter.

            “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” Oz asks with a light laugh, trying his best to sound casual. “You look as though you could kill me in about ten seconds, with those eyes of yours. I don’t think I’d even so much as risk a fight with you.”

            The stranger is breathing very heavily, his eyes frighteningly wide. As Oz tentatively steps closer, he can see that they’re a shocking amber-gold. Golden eyes? Something about that strikes Oz as familiar, but he can’t place what it is…no, now is not the time for speculation. “And I don’t think you’re planning on hurting me,” he continues, even as his eyes catch sight of a glinting blade tucked into one of the belts holding up the man’s rags. So Uncle Oscar hadn’t been making the whole thing up after all. “You look a little too intent on carrying that person in your arms to decide to do something silly like lunge at me. You’d drop her, and she’d get hurt on the hard ground of this garden. And you don’t want that. Am I right?”

            “No’ a lady, a man,” the man corrects, his voice much higher than Oz expected it to be. An eerie, pained voice, but no doubt human. “‘E’s me bruvver.”

            “Even still,” Oz goes on, very quietly, “you don’t want to drop him, right? Your brother?”

            The stranger swallows hard, the sharp Adam’s apple of his throat bobbing roughly. His legs are quaking so hard that he has to back up against the tree to remain upright, but not once does he slacken in his hold of his brother. Oz takes a deep breath and takes a few more steps closer, ignoring Ada’s soft cry of his name. “I had to carry my sister all the way home from the park once after she tripped and sprained her ankle,” he says. “She’s right back there, by the door. Her name’s Ada. A bit spacey, but a good girl.”

            All the while, the stranger watches him warily, teeth chattering and dagger-sharp shoulders shivering beneath the thinness of his makeshift shirt. But he isn’t running away, isn’t making any movement that might signal trouble, so Oz takes the opportunity and comes closer to him, one hand just barely reaching out. “And I remember being so tired when we finally got home, carrying her so long, even though the park was only ten minutes away. You’ve carried your brother much longer than that, haven’t you?”

            The stranger doesn’t answer outright, but the affirmation is clear in his eyes and every tense line of him.

            “When my sister and I finally got home, I told our uncle what happened, and he joked that it would be easier to just hack off her foot and buy her a new one.” Oz gives a little laugh here, still subtly reaching out for the man leaning against the tree. “And little Ada, she was only seven at the time, thought he was being serious, and she gave a big wail and hid out in the garden for the rest of the evening, only coming back inside for tea-time.” Without looking back at his sister, he adds, “Isn’t that right, Ada?”

            Ada’s hesitation is only a few seconds before she clears her throat and says, “A-Ah, that’s exactly right! He said he was going to chop it clean off with his sword!”

            Something flashes in the stranger’s eyes. Yes, he was certainly the person Oscar saw on the streets. Oz gives a tiny smile and murmurs, “Little did she know, our uncle doesn’t even own a sword.”

            The wildness in the stranger’s eyes relaxes a little, but his body remains a tense bowstring plucked taut with nervous energy as he keeps his eyes fixed solely on Oz. Oz reckons the man could only be a year younger than him, if even that, although the filth and fear make it difficult to tell. When he speaks again, his voice remains in that strangely high pitch, made all the more chilling with the whispery words that come forth: “Please. ‘elp us.”

            Something that the man had been keeping a tight leash on within his heart suddenly snaps, and his knees buckle beneath him, all of his remaining strength devoted into keeping his waif of a brother safe in his arms. A horrible sob escapes him, and he bows his dark head, shaking so violently that his body could very well fall to pieces right there on the grass. The only words that come from those lips are the same few words over and over again - ‘ _elp us, ‘elp us, please, ‘ave mercy, please, ‘elp us -_

Ada’s footfalls and the sighing of her skirts along the grass can be heard over the man’s incoherent sobbing, and she rushes past Oz, who stares in bewilderment at the scene playing out before him. Ada kneels down before the stranger, her hands on his bony shoulders as she says soft, calming words that Oz can’t hear over the pounding of his own heartbeat and the pattering of the rain that brought these strangers directly to them. Yes, this is the crazy happenstance, without a doubt, but Oz hadn’t quite expected it to sit so heavily in his chest, nor for the sounds of a stranger pleading for aid to strike him out of any daydreaming stupor that had been so familiar to him before this. Lying in the grass and waiting for something to come to him suddenly seems like it was hundreds of years away, and he seems to stand there for another hundred, staring at that dark, bowed head and feeling something he can’t quite put a name to. Nostalgia? No, that’s impossible, he’s never seen this man before in his life. But what else could this feeling possibly be?

            These thoughts are broken when Ada looks over her shoulder at him, that serious expression back in her eyes and making them shine. “His brother has a terrible fever. Fetch me a pail of water from the well while I take him to my room, and please, be quick.”

            “Take care o’ me bruvver,” the golden-eyed man says over and over again in between horrible, childlike sobs, his shoulders jumping with every choppy breath he takes. He cries like someone would if they hadn’t been free to let go of themselves for a very, very long time, when the weight of the world bears down on them too heavily and they shrink down to something small and glasslike. It’s…frightening.

            Oz suddenly feels far out of his league in this situation, and very slow as realization dawns on him in cold trickles. This is no dream. “And what about him?” he asks quickly, nodding to the other as Ada scoops the blond brother into her arms with only a little bit of struggle. “What am I to do with him in the meantime…?”

            “Food, water, clothing,” Ada says, getting to her feet, holding a complete stranger against her chest as she walks in quick, urgent little steps. She nearly loses her balance twice, but she remains on her feet the whole time before vanishing into the house, leaving Oz alone with the man who, for some unfathomable reason, seems just a little too familiar to be called a stranger at all.

 

::

 

            Ada can fully understand why Oz had thought the body in her arms belonged to a woman, for that assumption had crossed her mind just as well. The young man’s face is feminine in its features, the nose upturned, the eyelashes long, the cheekbones high; he looks terribly fragile laid out on Ada’s bed like this, more like a ragdoll than a living being. Ada almost fears to touch him, not out of disgust, but out of a worry of hurting him. His breaths are shallow and rattling, his eyes closed, and when Ada softly touches the limp wrist hanging over the edge of the bed, his pulse is little more than a weak, uneven flutter. Ada bites her bottom lip in a moment’s fretting before tentatively leaning closer to him to whisper, “C-Can you hear me, mister…?”

            The man just barely opens his eyes, and Ada feels something in her stomach flip with surprise when she sees a glint of gold – and then a glint of ruby, the color as stark and rich as red wine. When he wearily finds her gaze, she gives him a soft smile, mentally counting his pulse and trying not to let her grave worry show on her face. But her smile wavers with faint confusion when he says something so quiet she can’t hear him, and she leans in closer, listening as best as she can.

            “Ha…lo…”

            And with that, his eyelashes flutter over his eyes and he bows his head, as if waiting for Ada to place something atop it. Ada watches him in silent wonder and gently touches the crown of his head with the very tips of her fingers, unsure of what else to do. It seems to be enough, though, for the man gives what Ada swears is the faintest curve of a smile – which appears almost inhuman in the dim candlelight, almost angelic – before his body goes lax again as he slips out of consciousness.


	4. put out the fire on us

**4.**

::

_put out the fire on us_

::

            When Oz had been waiting for fate to bring him some wild and unexpected change, this wasn’t quite what he had in mind.

            The dark-haired stranger is still crying, but now only in soft hiccups of breath as he wipes his runny nose on his arm. He remains slumped on his knees in the grass, and Oz watches him silently as he goes about pumping the water from the well into the bucket at his feet. What a haunting figure, this stranger, all shaking shoulders and bones as sharp as swords poking out from beneath his skin. Oz wonders what he would look like if he were cleaned up, given a bath and a haircut and nice clothes and food to bulk him up. Like a different person entirely, to be sure.

            But after a few more moments of watching him and with one more distracted push on the water pump, Oz hears the sound of the water overflowing from the bucket and sloshing out onto the grass. He tears his attention away from the curious stranger and stands upright with his pail in hand, then quietly makes his way over to the other’s crumpled form a few feet away. The sound of him approaching makes the stranger jump with alarm and peer up at Oz with those wild eyes, bloodshot from crying. Oz sighs out a laugh. “No need to be so jumpy,” he says. “In all actuality, I should be the one being jumpy around  _you._ It’s not too often we get nighttime visitors sneaking into the garden out of the blue.” After a moment, he reaches down a hand to him. “Here, I’ll help you up.”

The stranger swallows hard and makes to get to his feet, ignoring Oz’s offer, but the strength in his body must have been too heavily spent on carrying his brother this far, and his legs give out from under him within the moment. He turns his eyes away, looking angry in his embarrassment. “You folk don’ know wot iss like,” he says, his breath skipping in little gasps from crying. “I has ev’ry reason to be afraid of the higher-ups. They’s awful people when they likes to be. Wot’s to say you folks’ll be any diff’rent?”

            Oz furrows his brow in a moment’s innocent wonder. “If you’re so worried about that, then why did you come here?”

            It’s an honest question, not laced with any notes of teasing or remorse, and yet the stranger looks up at him with such angry hurt in his eyes that Oz instinctively takes a step away from him, startled. “I meant it genuinely,” he adds quickly. “Although I…suppose it was a bit of a daft question. I don’t know the first thing about what it means to be on the streets. I can’t imagine having to seek out help from complete strangers just to get by.” He remembers the sight of the other scrawny brother with his shallow breathing and limp limbs, more of a ragdoll than a living person, and has to suppress the shudder that rises up in him at the comparison. Clearing his throat, he offers his hand to the stranger one more time, a tiny reassurance offered to the man who stares up at him with those unsettling, owlish eyes. “It’s fine that you came here,” he says softly. “It’s certainly strange but, well…people say our family is quite strange, too, so perhaps you and your brother came to the right place.”

            After a few moments of silence, the two of them just looking at each other in the dark, the stranger warily accepts Oz’s hand and lets him be helped up to his feet. The corner of Oz’s mouth lifts in a relieved smile. “Suppose it would be decent to exchange names now. I’m Oz.”

            The other man’s eyes glint in a moment’s wonder, as if something has ghosted across his memory but he can’t quite catch hold of it. But the look is gone as quickly as it had arrived, and he clears his throat and murmurs, “Gilbert.”

  
            The name itself doesn’t ring any bells, but Oz can’t ignore the pulling at his conscience every time he looks into those strange golden eyes. But it’s nothing he can pinpoint right away, so he turns his attention away from it for now. “Gilbert, then,” he says on a pleasant, decisive sigh. “I was expecting something a bit more severe, but that works just as well.” He picks up the water pail at his feet and turns on his heel to head off to house. “I’ll call you Gil.”

            He half-expects his new guest to put up a protestation at the nickname, but when he glances over his shoulder at him, he looks more bewildered than conflicted, his eyes round and his mouth agape. Oz blinks at him, waiting. “Are you coming with me? It’s much warmer inside.”

            Gilbert’s hesitation is but a few moments longer before he tentatively steps forward and follows Oz a few paces behind, looking pensive and as if expectant of the house being a lion’s den that will swallow him up. When they reach the door, Oz turns to him and whispers, “You’ll have to be very quiet. I’ll hide you in my bedroom for the time being. This isn’t something my uncle would be too keen on waking up to in the middle of the night.”

            “And if he does wake? What’s we to do then?”

            Oz gives a noncommittal shrug. “Well, I presume we’d have to run for our lives. Then again, he could very well slaughter us before we’d have the chance to get away…”

            Gilbert’s eyes flash in a moment’s fear, but Oz breaks in a laugh and says, “So you’re a gullible one. That’ll be fun.” He reaches out to pat the man’s shoulder, but Gilbert winces as if bracing for impact and takes a quick step away from him. Oz pretends to not be perturbed by this and turns back around to lead him inside where it’s warm and dry. He wonders if it was just the wind, or if he really did just hear Gilbert, guarded as he is, let out the smallest breath of relief from being out of the cold at last. 

::

            Just as Ada is on the brink of worrying over how long her brother is taking, Oz finally slips into her room with the water pail, serving one quick glance down the hall before closing the door quietly behind him. Ada lets out a pent-up breath and rises from the edge of the bed. “Thank you,” taking the pail from Oz’s hands and setting by the bedside. “And where’s the other brother?”

            “In my room. I didn’t want to risk having him start crying again if he were in here with us.” Oz keeps his voice low and soft, and steals looks at the sick man lying on Ada’s bed with an expression somewhere in between worry and wonder. “You’re going to need clean sheets after this.”

            “That’s no concern of mine,” Ada says calmly, dunking a washrag into the water pail and returning to the bedside. “He needs this bed more than I do at present.”

            “Just an observation.” Oz leans against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest, staring off into space. “We’ll have to make some sort of inventory in the meantime, after all.”

            “We can’t keep it from Uncle for very long,” Ada says, gently brushing aside the stranger’s hair to lay the cool rag against his forehead. The frail man lets out the tiniest of sounds, little more than a breath of a whimper as his fair brow furrows the barest bit.

            “When should we tell him?”

            “The moment he wakes up,” Ada says without pause. “If it weren’t for his grouchiness at being woken up too soon, I’d go to his room and tell him right now.”

            “That’s because  _you’re_  mad in the head.”

            Ada’s only reply is a faint smile as she cleans her patient’s face with soft strokes of the rag, dirt and grime being washed away to reveal the palest skin she has ever seen. “He’s like a porcelain doll,” she murmurs with wonder, tilting her head to the side to study him closer.

            “And his brother is like an animal,” Oz says. “Even attempting to reach out to touch him had him bristling and ready to bite.”

            “You have to remember where they’ve come from, brother.” Ada takes in the details of the stranger’s face with a careful eye. Scratches and cuts line his face, and the deep bags under his eyes speak of exhaustion so palpable that Ada shudders to consider it in her own alarmingly vivid imagination. “This could very well be the first time anyone has ever shown them kindness…”

            Oz goes silent for a few moments, still staring off at nothing in particular. Then, very quietly, he says, “I’ve never seen anyone cry like that before. I didn’t know it was possible.”

            Ada lifts her head and looks over at him curiously. Come to think of it, when was the last time Oz himself cried? Ada can’t recall it for the life of her. Something about that reverie disturbs her, and she quickly turns her attention back to her patient. “We’re going to need medicine,” she says, eager to change the subject. “Something strong.”

            Oz seems to snap out of his dazed thoughts and comes back into focus. “Uncle’s medicine cabinet might have something useful…”

            “And if he catches you?”

            “He won’t,” Oz says simply, turning to open the door. “I’m nothing if not stealthy.”

            Ada gives him a smile and a small nod. A thought comes to her just as Oz is about to leave. “And Oz?”

            Her brother half-turns in the doorway to look at her.

            “Fetch me my spell book,” she says. “For good measure.”

::

            Gilbert feels as though he’s in a dream.

            Oz’s room is of a modest size, but to Gilbert, it’s no less than a palace. It has walls and a roof and a window, and everything is sealed up to keep out the cold, and the dark wooden floor is dry and clean. There’s no broken glass or dirty puddles or stinking muck beneath his feet, and the only sounds to be heard are the occasional creak of a floorboard and the vague groaning that houses make when they settle into themselves like something preparing for rest. The bed is large and blanketed with thick cream-white covers that Gilbert, were it not for his filthy hands, longs to touch and drape over his cold, aching body.

            Logic tells him that this was a foolish idea, coming here; or perhaps not logic, but a deep-seated, stubborn paranoia that breeds off of fear and bad memories, all of them stemming from the greediest of human beings who turned their noses up at the sight of two starving brothers huddled in a wet alley. Gilbert recalls now, with a sort of cold detachment, how his passive approaches for help turned to aggressive ones, at first just a pickpocketed coin here and there or a nicked apple from the street market – then eventually stealing, bargaining with beady-eyed monsters of men that eyed him and Vincent up as if they were pretty pieces of meat. Gilbert remembers the lies he told, the smiles he forced, the desperation and the depravity; but not once, not ever, did he or his brother have to resort to putting a price on their bodies to offer up to whoever wanted them. That much, at the very least, gives him closure.

            That all being mulled over, he realizes he could easily ransack this place. Clearly these people trust him enough to let him inside, to offer him a place in this finely decorated bedroom filled with valuables. But there comes a vague tugging in his chest when he considers it, a sort of nervous feeling that tells him  _no, don’t do it, what good would it do? You’d be back out on the streets, in the cold and the rain. Stay here. Don’t turn into an animal after these people have seen you as a human. No one else ever has._

And it’s that strange whispering feeling that keeps him in his place. His hands shake as he slowly explores the room, eager to touch every trinket and finery that he sees, but almost afraid to, out of some anxiety that something within him will burst free and pocket everything against his will. That and his dirty fingers would leave marks even if he did just innocently touch, and he doesn’t think that Oz fellow would like that very much.

            Gilbert pauses before the closet at the thought of that name, but as to why exactly he pauses, he doesn’t know. Something about this Oz person strikes within him an instinct to slow down, to contemplate, to wonder. Why did something reflecting in that man’s eyes seem so familiar? Even the name pulls at Gilbert’s conscience, but the reason for it fails him. The questions grate at him as they press him for answers he can’t give, and so he turns his attention back to his surroundings to keep himself distracted from his impatience and his hunger. After a moment’s hesitation, he reaches forward and carefully pushes the closet door open the rest of the way, peering inside at the pale, fine clothing hung in a neat row. He looks down at the awful rags covering him and winces. It must feel wonderful to always be clean. Gilbert would forgo the elegance of the clothing just in favor of the warmth of it, the knowledge that his body is covered and protected. The fancy trimmings, the gold buttons, the lace and the silk – Gilbert would need none of that. (Although he does think Vincent would be far more suited in the prettier styles of clothing such as this, given the chance. He has always been the more delicate one to look at.)

            A sudden sweep of worry washes over him, and Gilbert quickly backs away from the closet, staring down at the floor with wide eyes. Is that woman going to make Vincent better? Gilbert doesn’t even know her. What if Vincent is scared without him there, left in the company of a stranger while so ill and vulnerable? A deep pang of guilt pinches hard at Gilbert’s nerves, and he quickly makes his way over the door. To hell with Oz’s warning of staying in this room; Vincent’s welfare is more important.

            His hand only pauses but a moment before he turns the doorknob and quietly slinks out into the hall.

::

            When Oz reaches his uncle’s room, the bed is empty. He stands motionless in the doorway as his mind races one hundred miles per second with a mixture of overwhelmed questions of what to do and desperate prayers that Gilbert remains as quiet as he can. The other brother, at the very least, won’t be of consequence even if Oscar happens to stumble upon the sight of him in Ada’s care – his uncle’s good will and empathy would excuse the shock of that – but the thought of him opening Oz’s bedroom door to find a sharp-eyed stranger only comparative to a hungry raven would be a completely different story. And it’s a story that Oz under no circumstance can allow to happen.

            “Damn,” he whispers to himself, closing the door quietly behind him and making his way to the bathroom. He supposes this is what he gets for not thinking this through, but what else was he supposed to do? Gilbert’s anguished cries echo in his memory and he winces a little, haunted by the sound. But there’s no time to be distracted; he has to make this task quick and easy before his uncle returns to his room, no doubt making a cup of tea or smoking a late-night cigar in the garden.

He spots the medicine cabinet in the adjoined bathroom and hurries to it as soundlessly as he can. It’s only when he opens it and sees the assortment of bottles and containers inside that he remembers with a dull shock that he has virtually no idea of what exactly he’s supposed to be fetching. He gives a lightly annoyed hum beneath his breath and grabs every medicine within sight, stowing them in every free pocket and tucking others into the waistband of his trousers. The cabinet is closed with a too-loud click that makes his nerves jump as he rushes out of his uncle’s room, hopping lightly on his feet like a rabbit to keep from making too much noise.

            But the moment he looks down the hall, he knows he’s in big trouble.

            Gilbert almost blends in with the shadows, all but being one himself, but Oz still spots him slinking through the darkness like a strange bird, his back hunched and his limbs like daggers. Oz nearly drops the medicine and has to scramble to catch a stray bottle that slips from his waistband, reaching down into his pant leg to grab it as he hobbles over to Gilbert. His voice is a stage whisper when he says, “Gil! You can’t be out here, you have to get back to my room!”

            Gilbert turns his head to look at him. The grimy sheet of his hair falls over his face, hiding his eyes. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make even the faintest sound. Anyone else would shiver at the eerie sight, but Oz merely rolls his eyes and tucks the medicine bottle back into his waistband before reaching out to grab hold of Gilbert’s hand. Gilbert immediately bristles and lets out a sound much like a hiss, trying to break free from the grasp, but Oz hushes him and drags him along back to his room – until he sees the sudden glow of candlelight from down the hall, and then the towering silhouette of none other than his uncle. A rush of adrenaline rips through him and he yanks Gilbert by the arm to get him to the room faster, but it’s too late.

            “Oz?” Oscar calls out. “What are you rummaging around for?”

            Gilbert lets out a high, panicked sound in the back of his throat, which Oz masks with a laugh as he reaches for the doorknob and opens the door to shove him into the room. He hands Gilbert the bottles in his shirt pockets and is given a most bewildered look in return, but he closes the door in the other’s face and leans up against it to hide the other bottles in his waistband and back pockets. Luckily the hallway is dark enough that the shadows had likely hidden Gilbert from his uncle’s sight, but Oz’s heart is still pounding as he plasters on his best smile and says, “Ah, I couldn’t see where I was going and I tripped. But no damage was done! No bones broken…”

            Oscar is silent at the other end of the hall. Oz swallows hard and keeps his smile firmly fixed in place, but it wavers when Oscar asks, “Did you find what you needed in my room?”

            Oz shifts against the door to better hide the medicine bottle sticking out from his waistband, casually tugging at the flap of his shirt to pull it over. “Hm…?”

            Oscar lets out a laugh. “I’ve told you before, Oz. If you want to smoke a cigar with your uncle, you should just ask! No need to sneak around like a little thief in the night.”

            Oz is so relieved that he has to consciously stifle the sigh that wells up in his chest and replace it with a laugh instead. “Ah, but I wasn’t expecting to get caught! Normally I’m much stealthier.”

            The candlelight becomes brighter as Oscar makes his way down the hall, a cup of tea in his other hand. “Oh, but dear nephew, you’ll have to brush up on your sneaking skills a tenfold if you want to become a true Vessalius.”

            For a moment, Oz swears he hears Gilbert gasp from behind the door. He passes it off as his imagination and laughs, the sound of it outwardly easy and natural despite its phoniness.

Oscar is just about to pass by Ada’s door when the coughing starts, a horrible, wet coughing that Oz knows can only belong to the man in Ada’s care. His stomach drops as Oscar freezes in the middle of his stride and looks to the source of the sound. “What the hell is that…?”

            “Ada has a cold,” Oz says quickly, his lies unraveling one by one.

            “She hasn’t been ill in the slightest,” Oscar rebukes.

            “It was very sudden?”

            “Oz,  _really_  now – ”

            Oscar is cut off when Ada opens her bedroom door wide enough for him to see into her room. She stands in the doorway with her head tilted up and her eyes set and focused, upright and unyielding. Oz can see the slightest bit of a tremor to her hands, but otherwise, his sister appears entirely unshakable in her stance as she looks up at Oscar with a decisive gaze. “I’m not ill,” she says, “but this man is. And I’ll be taking care of him from here on out.”

            It’s not often that Oz sees his sister this serious, but when she is, she’s unstoppable. Oscar looks at her, then into the room at the coughing, shuddering form of Vincent on the bed, and then back to Ada again with the same wide-eyed look that begs for answers. “Am I supposed to just accept the fact that you brought a complete stranger into our house in the middle of the night?”

            “Yes,” Ada says, “because I know of your good will, uncle. So I knew you would understand why I need to do this.”

            Oscar looks past Ada’s shoulder at Vincent again, who lies sheened in a coat of sweat beneath the halo of the kerosene lamplight, before giving one massive heave of a sigh and taking a sip of his tea. “The pains of raising the both of you so well…is there any other news you want to break to me? Goblins in the attic, elves in the garden, anything of that sort?”

            Ada looks pointedly at Oz, her fair brow raised in expectance. Oscar’s gaze follows and lands on him, and Oz hesitates a few moments before sighing and muttering, “Fine, fine…” His door is opened, and the darkness of the bedroom makes it near impossible to pick out Gilbert’s shadow at all. But the flicker of Oscar’s candle casts a wavering glow onto his figure just enough to make him out. But Oz can see him shivering, hiding his face behind his mess of hair as he hunches his back and wraps his arms around himself. When Oscar is about to speak, Oz stops him immediately with an instinctive plea: “Let me do the talking. He’s scared.”

            Oscar gives him a strange look, but sighs again and gives a nod of his head, gesturing for Oz to go on ahead. Oz clears his throat and steps a bit closer to Gilbert’s dark shape. “Gilbert?” Soft as his voice is, Gilbert continues to shake and retreats further into the shadows. Oz reaches out a hand to offer him and tries again, this time with, “Gil?”

            Gilbert stops shivering. He turns his head and looks at Oz, and the bright gold of his eyes is lit up when the candlelight flickers over him again. Oz huffs out a laugh and smiles at him. “Here, take my hand. It’s alright.”

            There’s a lapse of motionless silence before Gilbert shakily accepts Oz’s hand. Their fingertips touch, then their palms as Oz laces his fingers within Gilbert’s nervous ones and gently guides him out into the hall. “Gil, this is my uncle, Oscar. He’s the one who doesn’t actually own a sword but bluffs about it anyway.”

            Gilbert starts to shake again. Oz squeezes his hand and looks at up at Oscar, waiting for it. And the moment he’s waiting for comes when Oscar, studying Gilbert with a careful eye, asks, “So you’re the lad who nearly cut a man to ribbons out in the street tonight, aren’t you?”

            Gilbert bows his head low and begins to retreat again, but Oz keeps him in place with another squeeze of his hand and a lighter-than-air murmur of his nickname. He glances at his sister over Oscar’s shoulder; she’s smiling at him, the upward lilt of her lips nervous but hopeful.

            Before Gilbert can respond, if he had been meaning to at all, Oscar asks, “Were you protecting someone?”

            Oz hears Gilbert take in a swift breath as he lifts his head a fraction. His eyes are wide and bright beneath his dirty bangs.

            “You don’t look like a killer,” Oscar says with a chuckle, still looking over Gilbert with the same sort of paternal empathy that Oz has admired for years. “You don’t want another man’s blood on your hands. That’s why I stopped you when I did.” He flashes his signature grin and lets out a bellow of a laugh that makes Gilbert jump a little. “Rather valiant of me, wouldn’t you agree?”

            “Uncle…” Ada murmurs from behind him, shaking her head but laughing softly to herself.

            “In any case,” Oscar says, reaching forward to clap Gilbert on the shoulder before Oz can stop him. Gilbert stiffens with a ragged gasp, but he doesn’t lash out, which Oz supposes is a step in the right direction. “My instinct tells me that you’re quite valiant yourself, boy. And my instinct is never wrong.”

            Gilbert slowly looks up at him with an expression that makes him look like a child. “Valiant…?” He tries the word out on his tongue, testing it out, seeing how it fits. Oz watches him in awe as all the sharp and gloomy parts of him melt away into a softness that he can’t fathom into words.

            “But you smell to high heavens, goodness!” Oscar says in the next moment, hooting down the hall as he turns around and makes his way back into the kitchen. “That’s the first and most important part of being valiant, smelling like a gentleman! Oz, get this boy a bath!”

            Oz watches his uncle walk off before slumping against the wall and letting out a relieved sigh. “That certainly went better than expected…”

            “No,” Ada says, still smiling. “I knew he would take it well. He couldn’t turn away someone in need.”

            “Suppose that’s true.” A thought comes to him, and he pulls out the medicine bottles still tucked in his back pockets and waistband, handing them to Ada one by one. “Oh, here’s all the medicine. I just took whatever I could carry since I didn’t know what it was you would need. You’re better with that sort of thing than I am.”

            Ada surveys the labels of the bottles and nods, looking pleased. “These will do just fine. Thank you, brother.” And just as she is about to turn on her heel to go back into her room, she catches sight of Gilbert still standing behind Oz, and she pauses, clearing her throat. “Would you, um…like to sit with your brother while Oz draws a bath? He’s awake now.”

            The look on Gilbert’s face makes Oz think he will start crying again, but all Gilbert does is swallow hard and give a small nod, looking awkward and stiff. He lets go of Oz’s hand as he passes by, and it’s only then that Oz realizes he’d been holding it the whole time.

::

            Ada is a strange girl, but no stranger than her brother; or rather, just as crooked, but crooked in different ways. Gilbert watches her closely as she reads each label on the bottles set before her, the letters little more than curious shapes and squiggles that Gilbert can’t comprehend; the girl’s every movement is quiet and decisive, graceful, but there’s an awkwardness to her, something out of place. It’s the same sort of strangeness, Gilbert realizes, that hangs within Oz – nameless, eerie, intriguing. Like paintings given life.

            “It’s a good thing you came here,” Ada says with a smile, her voice thoughtful and light. “Our uncle is a good person. But not everyone else in this town is.”

            Gilbert perches nervously on the edge of the wooden chair and watches her closely, soundlessly. There’s a question burning on the tip of his tongue that he’s shaking to ask.

            “Oh, but that’s not to say that everyone else is  _cruel_ , though,” she adds quickly. She gently lifts Vincent’s head to help him sip at a cup of water, him being too weak to sit up on his own. The sight of it makes Gilbert’s stomach hurt. “I don’t want to scare you or anything…I’m sure this is all very overwhelming for you, isn’t it?”

            Gilbert stares at her for a few quiet seconds before the question building within him becomes too much. “You and yer bruvver di’n’t say you were Vessaliuses.”

            Ada looks over at him and blinks, her expression one of mild surprise. But it soon shifts into a placid, unreadable look as she goes back to tending to Vincent, who coughs weakly and shivers at the touch of the washrag she drapes over his forehead. “It wasn’t necessarily a  _secret_ ,” she says with a soft laugh. “We just hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it yet…”           

            “Would you’ve?”

            “Of course.” But the words come out so quickly that Gilbert has to doubt their honesty. Ada sighs and begins arranging the medicine bottles neatly atop her nightstand, avoiding Gilbert’s unmoving stare. Her laugh is small and sad. “It’s…well, it’s not really something that we can just openly admit right away. People say things.”

            Gilbert is silent, waiting for her to go on.

            “Unkind things,” Ada murmurs, her eyes wide and vacant as she stares down at her lap. “They say them to my brother and I see red.”

            Gilbert watches as Ada’s hands clench into fists, a sudden and sharp tension rising up within her. A twitch of a smile touches the corner of her lips as she stares off into space for a long enough time that Gilbert begins to feel himself getting nervous; but then he recalls the knife he’d held to that man’s throat in the street, the white-hot rage that had turned his nerves to spikes at the thought of Vincent getting hurt again, and he suddenly understands.

            Ada’s spell is broken when she blinks back to the moment, looking over at Gilbert with an abashed smile. “I do hope you can forgive us, though. We’ll make up for it.”

            Gilbert looks at her as if seeing something unreal – a talking statue; stories coming to life; the end of the world. “Iss…iss not me place to ask for anyfing.”

            “That isn’t true,” Ada says with a shake of her head, helping Vincent swallow a spoonful of medicine with a careful lift of his head. “It’s about time someone showed you and your brother some kindness.”

            Kindness. Gilbert muses quietly on that word for a while, picks it apart, tries to dress himself in it. It doesn’t fit. He doesn’t understand.


	5. washed your hands clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay some reminders because even i forgot over the course of writing this. ages are!
> 
> oz - 23  
> gil - 22  
> vincent - 21  
> ada - 16
> 
> okay.

**5.**

+

_washed your hands clean_

+

            The bathwater glimmers silver-blue in the porcelain tub, lit up prettily by the bright glow of the tableside lantern. Oz steps back to survey his hard work, touching the water to make sure it’s warm enough. His back cracks painfully when he bends over, stiff from his labor of going to and from the well to fill the tub, but he’s grateful to find that the temperature is comfortable enough and expels a sigh of relief. “Alright, you can come in now,” he calls out.

            Gilbert lingers just outside the doorway of the washroom, his head hung low and his arms covering his abdomen protectively. When he hesitates, Oz lets out a tired laugh and beckons him with a wave of his hand. “It’s not cold, trust me. I just checked.”

            Gilbert looks at him warily with his owlish eyes before huffing out a breath through his nose and shuffling into the washroom. Oz dries off his hands on a spare rag and reaches over to close the door, which seems to startle Gilbert so badly that Oz feels the need to immediately explain himself. “Unless you want my uncle or sister to barge on in here while you’re bathing…”

            “Yer stayin’ wiv me…?” Gilbert blinks at him with wide eyes, suddenly looking small and shy.

            Oz huffs out a laugh and shrugs his shoulders. “I’m going to be honest with you, Gil. You’re filthy. You’re filthier than filthy. And you won’t have any luck getting clean if you try to do this on your own.”

            Gilbert’s mouth twists in a moment’s indignant scowl before he looks back down at the floor in defeat. Oz opens his hands, palms out, a sign of modesty. “We’re both men, are we not? There’s nothing strange about it. What would  _really_  be a riot is if Ada were in my place, wouldn’t you agree?”

            Gilbert doesn’t say anything in reply, though he reaches for one of the ratty belts holding up his rags with his long, nervous fingers. “Turn ‘round,” he mumbles.

            Oz smiles and turns his back to him. “So on top of being gullible, you’re also  _shy…_ ” He hums out a laugh, delighting in this with a wicked satisfaction. “Gil, I think you and I might just become the very best of friends.”

            There’s the soft sound of Gilbert’s dirty clothing dropping to the floor in an inelegant heap, and then silence. Oz knows he’s probably standing there uncertain of what to do next, and he speaks up with a reassuring, “Go ahead and get in. I’m not so cruel as to turn around before you’re ready.”

            Gilbert lets out a small cough as he pads over to the tub on bare feet. Oz hears the light ripple of water that builds gradually as Gilbert sinks down into the tub, his sigh a tremulous hiss of relief. Oz idly thinks it sounds nice as he pushes up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, staring at the wall straight ahead and rocking back and forth on his feet.

             A long silence passes before Gilbert, low and meek, says, “I’m in.”

            Oz smiles and turns on his heel to face him. “Good boy.”

            Gilbert’s abashed gaze drops down to the water. His legs are bent, spindly arms wrapped around his knees as he huddles into himself in a little knot. The water is already gathering dirt and grime on the surface as the first layer of filth washes away from his skin in seconds. He looks as though he tries very hard not to stiffen when Oz comes closer to the tub, but he’s so bony that Oz can see the sharp point of his spine shift beneath his skin as he tenses up. “It’s alright,” Oz says, taking a seat on the stool by the tub. “I’m just going to sit right here, okay? Not too close, not too far away. Everything’s fine.”

            The muscles of Gilbert’s jaw tighten as he grinds his teeth, but he gives a tiny nod of understanding, and Oz figures that’s at least better than nothing. Steam rises from Gilbert’s skin, though Oz can see how he’s shaking. “Hm? Is the water warm enough?”

            “Mm.”

            “Oh, good. Doesn’t it feel nice? I bet it’s been a long time since you’ve had something like this, huh?”  _Possibly the first time_ , he thinks.  _It’s not as though they have baths lying about in the alleys of Sablier…_

            Gilbert doesn’t make any sound of reply, just sits in his tight little knot and breathes in shallow little puffs through his nose and closes his eyes tightly. Oz tilts his head to the side, studying him carefully. “Gil,” he murmurs, “does it bother you that much that I’m in here with you?”

            “Iss not you,” Gilbert whispers, wrapping his arms tighter around his knees. “Iss wot I look like. I look ‘orrible.” There’s a pause, and he bows his head so that Oz can’t see his face. “An’ you don’t.”

            Oz blinks at him in a moment’s surprise. “You think I’m handsome, Gil?”

            That seems to only make Gilbert shake harder, and Oz brushes off his comment with a breezy laugh. “It was a joke. Well, not really, but even still. If you do think I’m handsome, then I’m certainly flattered. No need to be ashamed of admitting that, right?”

            Oz can see a slow blush creeping along the back of Gilbert’s neck and spreading out along his shoulders, and since he doesn’t want the poor man to melt away entirely, he quickly changes the subject, keeping his tone casual and light as the rising steam. “You’re not going to get clean if you only sit there. Your hair especially, it’s not even wet.”

            Gilbert sends him a sideways glance, a flash of gold beneath greasy black bangs.

            “Now you’ll probably say no,” Oz says carefully, “but would you like me to help you?”

            Gilbert’s throat bobs in a swallow, and just when Oz thinks he’s about to lash out or reject the offer, he lets out the tiniest sound of agreement, little more than a single syllable stuck at the back of his throat. Oz smiles in relief and scoots his stool closer to the tub. “Back to what you were saying though, about what you look like…” He reaches for the small cup on the table beside the tub. “I’m a firm believer that baths can solve just about anything. People always feel better once they clean up, it’s a proven fact. I bet once you’re all clean you won’t even feel so skittish anymore.”

            Gilbert wipes under his nose with the back of his hand and keeps his head bowed as Oz dunks the cup into the water to fill it, then gently pours it over the back of his head to soak through his hair. “Ada used to get what they call ‘anxiety attacks’ when she was younger,” he explains, dunking the cup again. “She would seize up with this sudden fear of everything around her, and she would shake all over and let no one near her except for me and our uncle.”

            Gilbert turns his head the slightest bit as if something suddenly occurs to him.

            “That was back when she was but four or five years old,” Oz goes on, pouring the water over Gilbert’s hair again. “But I remember how the only thing that could calm her down was taking a long bath. Uncle Oscar would wash her hair and sing to her and let her play with the soap bubbles until she’d be laughing again. And then she’d be as good as new, like nothing had ever happened.”

            Oz reaches for the small bottle of soap on the table and pours a generous amount atop Gilbert’s head. Gilbert’s shoulders twitch at the first touch of Oz’s hands, but he relaxes soon after when Oz combs his fingers through the long black hair and scrubs gently at his scalp, uncaring of the dirt that builds under his fingernails with each scrub. He thinks he sees a shiver zip down Gilbert’s spine, thinks he hears a little sigh breathe past his lips.

            “Wot’s the word you used?” Gilbert tilts his head to the side when Oz guides it to wash behind his ears. “Yer sister’s…attacks. Wot’s the word fer that?”

            “Hm? Anxiety attacks?”

            “Yeh.” Gilbert shivers again as Oz scrubs along the nape of his neck. “Sounds like wot Vince gets…folks on the streets calls it ‘the affliction.’”

            “That doesn’t sound very friendly.”

            “Iss not.” Gilbert is quiet for a beat, and then, “City folks thought me bruvver was possessed. Thought ‘e was bein’ taken over by a demon.”

            Oz laughs and rinses the soap from Gilbert’s hair. “Well, if that were the case, then Ada would have been possessed by the same demon that feasted upon your brother. Perhaps they’re meant for each other.”

            Gilbert turns his head at that, his brow furrowed in confusion, but Oz guides him to turn back around with a light touch to his ear. “Just another joke,” he says casually, and Gilbert replies with that uncertain hum that slowly melts into a sleepy sigh as Oz rinses his hair with another cupful of warm water. After some consideration, he picks up the soap bottle once more and pours a second round atop Gilbert’s head. He hears Gilbert mumble an apology, to which he replies with, “It’s fine. It feels nice, yes?”

            Gilbert gives a heavy nod of his head as Oz goes back to scrubbing. His shoulders relax and his tight hold around his knees slackens a little, though his legs remain bent, covering himself with a strange sort of modesty that Oz finds endearing. Once the second round of soap is rinsed from his hair, Oz grabs a washrag from the table and scoots his stool around to better face him; the dark sheet of Gilbert’s wet hair covers his eyes, and Oz’s hands are gentle as he pushes the dripping bangs away from Gilbert’s face with the intention of washing the remaining dirt and sweat from it.

            But when he sees him, he can’t help but stare.

            Gilbert’s eyes are open and alert as he’s immediately brought to attention at Oz’s shift in position. His wet hair clings to his cheeks and neck, swiped messily away from his forehead and out of his eyes so that Oz can see him fully for the first time. (The first time?  _Is_ this the first time? Oz can’t be sure anymore.) His face is a strange one, angular and avian in its shape, with high cheekbones, arching brows, and a pursed, serious mouth. A noble face, too pretty to be out in the alleys. The slight downward slope to his nose makes him appear all the more birdlike, but it’s his eyes that Oz focuses on - deep-set and unnervingly bright, the lashes long and black, his expression touched with a paranoia that Oz would no doubt expect from someone having been living in desperation for so long, and yet a dash of hope lingering amidst his unsettling gaze, a familiarity…

            “Wotcher lookin’ at…?” Gilbert asks after a long silence, shifting nervously in the water.

            Oz blinks and gives a shake of his head, his laugh little more than a puff of air. “Just as I expected. You do clean up nice.”

            Gilbert’s eyes go wide as he looks down at the water rather than at Oz. Water droplets slither down his face and drip from his chin. He is very, very still.

            “You don’t seem too pleased at that,” Oz says with a mock pout. “Usually we say ‘thank you’ when someone tells us something like that.”

            Gilbert remains staring down at the water, his gaze focused between his bent legs as his cheeks flush.

           Oz dunks the washrag into the small pail of clean water beside the bathtub and reaches forward to wash Gilbert’s face, but Gilbert moves away almost immediately, turning his head and stiffening up all over again. Oz sits back with a frown. “Hiding from me again, are you?”

            “I’ll do it meself,” Gilbert mumbles, taking the rag from Oz and swiping it over his dirty face with a graceless roughness that makes him look all the more like an animal. Oz sits back and watches him pleasantly, crossing his legs and tilting his head to the side as he waits. Gilbert eventually drops the rag into the pail and lets out a sharp sigh, still hiding his face. “There. ‘m done.”

            “Let me see first.”

            Gilbert turns his head to look at him with blazing eyes that suddenly soften with abashed shyness once they meet Oz’s. Oz studies him for a moment before grabbing the rag out of the pail once more and reaching forward to wash a single remaining spot from Gilbert’s cheek. When he leans back to look him over again, he gives Gilbert a proud nod and drops the rag into the pail with finality. “Much better,” he says, standing up and brushing off his thighs with his palms. “You’re good to go, Gil.”

            As expected, he turns around to give Gilbert the space he needs to stand up out of the tub. Water patters in little chimes as Gilbert slowly stands upright, and Oz can imagine his legs trembling like a fawn’s would wobble on ice. They both remain wordless as he dries off, though Oz hums a silly tune to keep the room from being too quiet, and to keep from thinking that he can almost  _hear_  Gilbert shaking if he listens closely enough.

            “Goodness,” he sighs out, rubbing his belly which is starting to growl. “I do hope my uncle is cooking something quickly. I’m sure you’re quite hungry, aren’t you?”

            There’s a moment of complete and total silence, as if Gilbert has vanished out of thin air and Oz is now alone. Concerned, he chances a glance over his shoulder and sees Gilbert staring at him with the expression of a lost child. Oz blinks at him. “Gil? Are you alright?”

            Gilbert swallows hard, shaking from head to toe with the towel wrapped around his tired, hungry body. “Yer really goin’ to feed me…?”

            Oz laughs, the sound high with disbelief. “Well, goodness, I’m not going to let you _starve_  here. Do you take me for an animal? We have plenty of food for two more people.”

            Gilbert’s bottom lip is trembling. He stares at Oz as if he’s looking at an angel. And then, without another moment’s thought, he bursts into tears.

+

            Ada is glad for knowing this stranger’s name, which at least gives him a chance at being his own person rather than a nameless anomaly with a fever. She doesn’t think she’s ever known anyone by the name of Vincent before. It sounds to her like the name of a knight, someone brave and valiant and protective. She thinks a part of her remembers a story she had been told as a child about a Vincent, a knight, but she can’t be sure. She’ll have to ask Oscar first.

            “But I suppose we’ll have to get you well again before you can go about slaying dragons, right?” she says aloud to the half-asleep Vincent on her bed. She does that, speaking to herself out loud, sometimes without even noticing. Oz calls her mad as a hatter for it, but she blames it on her overactive imagination and severe lack of social exposure outside of her brother and uncle. But no matter; she has more important things to tend to now.

            The sleepy slits of Vincent’s eyes are where Ada’s attention is focused. Now that he’s tranquil and medicated, he doesn’t shrink away from her when she tentatively leans closer to him to see the glittering ruby beneath one of his eyelids. She hasn’t seen a red eye in ages; then again, while she’s sure she’s seen one before, she can’t place the exact details of it, whom the eye belonged to or the events leading up to it. But she’s sure in the back of her mind that it happened, so she will have to settle for that vague memory at best.

            “It’s very pretty,” she murmurs with a smile. “Your red eye.”

            Vincent’s fair brow furrows in a moment’s confusion. He can hear her, at least, but she isn’t making sense to him. Ada Vessalius has a tendency to not make sense to a lot of people.

            “Ah, forgive me,” she says softly, “I shouldn’t be talking your head off. You really should rest. My uncle is making something for you and your brother to eat, but you’ll have to stick to broth for a while. Is that okay?”

            Vincent keeps looking at her in his confused, medicated stupor. Ada smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back. That’s to be expected, of course, though Ada is already envisioning the days when the man’s face will fill out and the color will return to his skin and he’ll smile and feel much, much better. “But it’s going to take a while,” she says, speaking her disjointed thoughts out loud again. “You’ll get there, though. I’ll help you, and my brother and uncle will as well. Everything’s going to be fine.”

            Vincent’s exhausted, paranoid eyes stay on her for a few more moments before his eyelids close. His breathing becomes slow and even, telling Ada that he’s asleep. She sits by his bedside and washes his face with gentle passes of the washrag until she loses track of time. She might as well be sitting there for weeks straight what with how time melts around her, lost in space and in the calming, repetitive movements of dunking the rag into the water pail and wiping it delicately across Vincent’s arching, feminine brow.

            She’s only brought out of her trance when there is light rap at the door before it opens, showing Oz in the doorway. “Uncle has made food for our…guests,” he ventures on a whisper. He nods to Vincent on the bed. “Is he still too ill to eat?”

            “He’ll have to stick to liquids for the next few days,” Ada whispers. “But broth will do.”

            “No matter, Uncle made soup. Will you come to the table or stay in here?”

            Ada hesitates, looking at Vincent’s sleeping, flushed face. But he seems to be comfortable, breathing easier now. She brushes her dress with her palms and gets to her feet as quietly as she can. “I’ll come. I should let him sleep in peace for a while.”

            “Yes, I reckon you’ve been talking his head off for ages.”

            Ada shoots Oz one of her pleasantly warning expressions, brows raised, lips pursed in a tight smile, her face the pinnacle of innocence with a dash of fire to it. Oz backs down immediately, just as she knew he would.

            Just before she leaves the room, she sends one last glance behind her to Vincent sleeping on the bed. Filthy and downtrodden as he is, he looks like an angel in the amber light.

+

            The first thing Oz says when he strolls into the dining room is, “Oh, well don’t you look marvelous.”

            Gilbert’s face is drawn tight with an embarrassment that he seems to be devoting a good deal of energy into holding back, but Oz spots it right away, plucks it up like a flower in the midst of a thicket of weeds. He watches Gilbert tuck nervously at the cuffs of his borrowed shirt, eggshell white and adorned with plain buttons. Gilbert’s fingertips move to those buttons next, tugging at the ones closest to his throat.

            “Here,” Oz says, coming closer to where Gilbert sits at the table. When he reaches for the two topmost buttons, Gilbert stiffens, but Oz hushes him and loosens them until they’re undone. He feels Gilbert swallow against his fingers before he pulls his hand away and straightens to survey the other man with an approving eye. “Better?” he asks, smiling.

            Gilbert gives a reluctant nod and keeps his eyes to the floor. His mouth is pursed tight, his cheeks still red from his bath.

            Oz touches Gilbert’s overgrown bangs and flops them about his forehead. “The next step is a haircut,” he announces. “So you look less like a shaggy dog and more like a gentleman.”

            “Oz, quit with your tormenting of the poor lad,” Oscar says from the kitchen over the sound of a soup ladle clinking against a porcelain bowl. “He’s been through enough tonight, let alone being called a dog by a stranger.”

            “Shaggy dogs are charming in their own right,” Oz protests innocently.

            “That’s no title any man would want,” Oscar replies.

            “And besides, Gil and I aren’t strangers.”

            Ada’s voice comes next, also from the kitchen as she helps her uncle serve the soup. “Uncle, was there a story about a knight named Vincent? Any story that you can recall telling Oz and I when we were children?”

            Oz sees Gilbert suddenly lift his head up from its sullen position, his eyes bright and sparkling with attention, mouth parted just so as if waiting to speak.

            “Ah, let’s see…” Oscar’s voice trails off in the midst of his train of thought. “Yes, I remember now! A fairy tale following the adventures of the knight Vincent. Very good story. In fact I’m surprised you’d forgotten it, Ada, since it was always your personal favorite.”

            “I didn’t forget it,” Ada says. “I still remember it here and there. The name Vincent seemed very familiar, after all.”

            Oz keeps his attention trained on Gilbert, who is listening to the conversation very closely, his back straight and his eyes alert. A sudden thought occurs to Oz, sudden and shimmering in his memory which seems to have sparked out of nowhere. “Wasn’t there another character in the story, Uncle? By the name of Gilbert?”

            Oz watches with delight as Gilbert’s face flushes a slow, deep red.

            “Ah, yes, that’s right!” Oscar says. “He was the shepherd of the tale. In fact, as I remember it, he was the knight’s older brother!”

            “My,” Oz sighs out, grinning, “we’ve really landed ourselves into quite a little fairytale, haven’t we?”

            Gilbert’s face is so red that Oz thinks it may very well stay that way forever. He’s looking down at his lap with wide golden eyes, the muscles of jaw tight, his hands balled into fists atop his knees. Oz’s grin softens as he looks upon him with something much like sympathy that perhaps would be stronger were it not for his devilish enjoyment in making the man blush so brilliantly.

            “That’s incredible!” Ada exclaims joyously as she bustles out of the kitchen, two soup bowls in her hands. “Did your parents really name you and your brother after fairytale characters, or was it just a crazy happenstance?”

            The mood of the room rapidly shifts over into something cold when Gilbert looks up at Ada with unfeeling eyes, his expression chilly and hollow. “Me an’ Vince don’t ‘ave parents,” he says quietly, icily.

            Ada’s mouth parts in an embarrassed little o-shape as she clears her throat and sets the bowls of soup down onto the table. “O-Oh, forgive me, that was a slipup of mine. I’m sorry, truly. I should have considered…”

            Even Gilbert’s sudden hateful expression seems to defrost a little at Ada’s genuine apology, and then it’s him that looks embarrassed. He looks back down at his lap and shakes his head like he wants to shake his own thoughts out of his ears.

            “Well, I do suppose that’s quite enough of that,” Oz chirps, clapping his hands together and taking a seat beside Gilbert at the table. “Ada, give my bowl to Gil, he needs it more than I do.”

            “Mm, I was going to do that anyway,” Ada says with her usual curt sweetness. “Though I’m worried if he eats too quickly he might get sick-“

            But there’s no more time for debate before Gilbert is all but attacking the first bowl of soup the way a wolf would attack its prey, forgoing the spoon in favor of tipping the bowl up to his face and swallowing great mouthfuls of soup seemingly without pause. Ada blinks at him with wide eyes, standing by the table and frozen like a figure in a portrait. Oscar is the middle of the entrance to the kitchen, a coffee mug suspended before his mouth as he watches the scene the way a man would watch a particularly tense match of croquet.

            Oz, on the other hand, watches with a pounding heart, enraptured by Gilbert’s hunger, the honesty of his own need to be satiated after such a long spell of deprivation. The sudden heat that touches his face alarms him, having hit him completely without warning. He feels as though the very last breath in his chest has been knocked out of him at the scene playing out before his eyes. He doesn’t recall ever feeling anything quite like it; a part of him is deeply unnerved by the sentiment, as if his alignment has fallen out of place and he is now a stranger to himself, while another part of him doesn’t ever want the feeling to go away as it lights him up from the inside out, turning his blood hot with a fiery fascination he didn’t dare think was ever possible.

            Only a minute, two minutes at most, have passed by the time Gilbert finishes the bowl of soup, breathing heavily with his head bowed and the damp, freshly washed curls of his hair covering his face. The bowl sits in his lap, emptied of its contents and still steaming even in their absence. His legs are shaking.

            Oz doesn’t think he’s breathed the entire time watching him; nor have Ada and Oscar moved from their respective spots, one by the table and one at the threshold separating the dining room from the kitchen. The only sound to be heard is Gilbert’s unsteady, shallow breathing, his body taut and trembling like an animal’s.

            Oz is the first to finally break the stillness. He reaches into the pocket of his trousers and finds a handkerchief, handing it to Gilbert with a hand that suddenly feels weak, an arm that feels too heavy. “Here,” he says softly. “Wipe your mouth.”

            Gilbert doesn’t lift his head as he accepts the handkerchief and tremulously wipes his mouth with its off-white cotton. Oz can see his bony shoulders shuddering beneath his shirt in little spasms.

            The room is silent. Oz kneels down before Gilbert’s chair and looks up at him beneath the black fall of the man’s hair. “What we usually say when someone gives us a meal,” he murmurs, “is ‘thank you.’”

            Ada says Oz’s name quietly from where she stands, her voice softly chiding.

            Gilbert’s throat bobs in a swallow. Oz smiles at him, the curve of it gentle on his mouth and unbeknown to him, as slow and natural as the steam rising from the empty bowl in Gilbert’s lap.

            “Thank you,” Gilbert says to the room in his hoarse, high voice.

            And then he’s onto the second bowl.


End file.
